I was having trouble catching my breath and shoved another bite of spaghetti in my mouth to cover. “Good,” I mumbled around the food I was chewing. “I think.”
I caught his quick grin as he returned to his own meal and took a deep breath. “So, can I stay here? Since my mother’s moving and all…and I think I’d like to try working in my studio some —”
“Birdie.” My name on his lips stopped my rambling. “You don’t need to ask. This is your home.”
We finished our meal but lingered over the plates, working out the details. He would give me as much space as I needed. And we’d check on a new vehicle tomorrow, so I could return Mom’s. A low hum of excitement and hope filled me for the first time since I’d woken up after the accident.
Home.
“Somewhere
someone
is watching
someone else’s
chest
rise and fall
with the
breath
of slumber.”
Tyler Knott Gregson
December 10 │Birdie
MY FIRST DAY BACK ON THE FARM, A SATURDAY, PASSED UNEVENTFULLY. Hayes came to pick me up from Mom’s house, which now had a glaring red and white SOLD sign decorating the front yard. Mom was already packed and ready for the drive to Georgia and her new life. She hugged me, patted my non-existent belly, and told me she’d be back when the baby arrived, and we parted ways with zero drama.
Hayes and I drove first to a car dealership. I was able to find a sturdy used SUV for what the insurance company had given me for my previous vehicle and just a little extra.
I followed behind Hayes as I drove to the farm, inhaling the scent of leather and new-to-me car by the lungful.
As we had waited on all of the paperwork to process, I had asked Hayes about our routines and preferences. “So, weekends. No school for you, and I’m home. What would we typically be doing?” His eyes blazed at me and I recognized lust. “Besides that,” I added hastily.
He smirked, not at all repentant. “We spent a lot of time on ‘that,’ to be honest. But let’s see…other stuff. You’d be working in your studio, painting on some piece of furniture, or baking.” He lifted a shoulder in a half-shrug. “You really didn’t have much of a schedule. You’re creative...you work when the mood strikes, even if it’s midnight.”
“That doesn’t sound very efficient.”
“You were always busy,” he said. “Always moving, always doing something. A few weekends before the accident, you spent all day processing apples from the little grove we have. Peeling, slicing, canning some, baking others...you went straight from that to visiting the flea market for more pieces.”
“What about you?”
“Sometimes I had grading, planning to do. Sometimes I worked outside, repairing stuff. We went for drives, visited friends.”
When we arrived at the house, Hayes carried my things into the master bedroom, which he insisted I have for ‘familiarity’s sake.’ I changed into a comfortable pair of joggers and decided to start with exploring. I’d only half finished last night.
The house was huge, although old and in genteel disrepair, and I had no clue what had possessed me to fall in love with something so big. On the bottom floor there was the kitchen, the rounded library that opened into a family room, master bed and bath, and my studio. A back porch looked to have been recently framed out and dry-walled. This must be the workspace Hayes had told me about. Via a covered walkway off of this room, a long, low building housed a garage and shed. I decided to explore it later and climbed a second staircase to the second floor.
There were four spacious rooms on the second floor, bedrooms connected by jack and jill bathrooms on the left and right. They were empty and echoing, with spackled areas on walls that begged for paint and hardwood floors that looked newly refinished. The rooms surrounded a central landing large enough for a sitting area, and another flight of steps led up to a third floor.
The third floor, I discovered, was more of an unfinished attic space, closed off from the rest of the house by a sturdy wooden door. I closed it and turned to walk back down, starting when I saw Hayes at the bottom. I placed my hand over my heart. “You scared me,” I told him.
“Sorry. Cat feet. What do you think?” He placed his hands in his pockets and rocked back on his heels, unmoving as I drew closer. I stopped on the bottom step, not wanting to push past him.
“What do I think? I think it’s ginormous. Why did we want something so big?”
He smirked at me. “Lots and lots of babies, I believe you said.”
I stared. “That’s not funny.”
“It kind of is.”
As I stared into his face, on level with my own from my elevated position, I felt my stomach flip. I placed a hand there to soothe the unsettling sensation and Hayes’ gaze sharpened. “Is it the baby?”
“No! The baby’s fine.”
“Then what’s wrong?”
“You’re too close to me, that’s what’s wrong.” I started to brush by him, stepping down with my leading foot to the floor. Before it connected, he caught me around the waist, though, pulling me snug against him, half on the step and half suspended.
“I can’t get too close to you, Birdie. You’re under my skin and still never close enough.” He cupped the subtle rise of my stomach with one hand, and the beating of butterfly wings intensified a thousand-fold. I drew in a shaky breath, and slowly, giving me ample time to protest, he trailed it upward, over my ribcage and to the underside of my breast. He teased it with a single languid thumb, brushing it softly once, then again. Then he lifted it to settle against my neck in a loose grip. “What do you want, Birdie?” he asked, his voice low and husky and intimate and making me want very bad things.
My eyes were closed, I realized, and I was holding my breath. I lifted my gaze to discover his pinning me in place, demanding my truth with his patient seduction. Breathe, I told myself. In. Out. It was just a kiss, the one he’d warned me I would ask for. I wanted it, I did. I wanted him, or at the very least my body did. Why was I resisting it?
Because he made me nervous? Because I didn’t trust him? Because my body trusted him when my head didn’t, and that made me nervous? It was too confusing.
“I-I n-need to —” I pushed against him and he released me immediately, save for a steadying hand until both feet found the floor. I walked a few feet across the landing to the staircase that led to the ground floor, then turned. I looked at his chin, unable to raise my eyes to his. “I’m sorry.”
I saw him nod once, decisively, and then he walked away.
I couldn’t sleep.
Being in this house, in this bed… it felt just unfamiliar enough to keep me tossing and turning. And yet, part of me unquestionably recognized it as home. As my mattress, my pillow.
It was the oddest feeling.
Deciding to get myself some water, I slid out of bed and walked down the hall to the kitchen. The wooden floors were freezing on my bare feet and I made a mental note to hunt up a pair of slippers.
As I went, I peeked into the guest room to check on Hayes. I don’t know what possessed me. Curiosity, perhaps. Guilt, maybe, for the way I had run earlier. I felt a compulsion there, in the stillness of the night, to look at him without his own attention being trained on me. To see him relaxed and off guard and as vulnerable as I felt all the time.